Yes, You Could Be Born to Be a CEO

Think all your blood, sweat and tears built your top-notch company? Turns out, your excellent executive skills may have more to do with your birthday.

A new study recently revealed that birthdays can determine your position (or lack thereof) on the company ladder.

Researchers found that babies born in March or April are more likely to eventually become CEOs than those with June or July birthdays. The month in which you're born apparently has "a long-lasting influence on career success."

The study, which will be in the next issue ofEconomics Letters, compiled birthday information from 375 people with CEO positions between 1992 and 2009. Only 6.1% were born in June and 5.9% in July, compared to 12.5% born in March and 10.7% with April birthdays.

How can this be? The study showed the U.S. school cut-off dates played a role in the findings, the Wall Street Journal reported. The cut-off, which decides when children start kindergarten, falls between September and January.

That means summer babies are typically the youngest in their class, while spring babies are the oldest. Because older children are usually more intellectually developed, March and April-born kids tend to perform better in class. Hence, the leg up on the competition in the business world.

Author Malcolm Gladwell famously made a similar birthday-based argument in his book Outliers, which focused on Canadian hockey players.

Birthdays aren't the only factor in establishing your entrepreneurial future. Inc. conducted a 2012 CEO survey of the companies on this year's Inc. 500 list. Some notable findings: 90% were male and 49% had at least one parent who was an entrepreneur.